Fan-restored KOTOR II content creates refined, expanded game

KOTOR II wasn't the most complete Star Wars title ever released, due to an …

It started a few years ago when someone discovered some missing content in the PC version of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords. They took it upon themselves to to go into the game's files and restore some of the data on their own. Then, someone else encountered a serious bug in the same title and started using the first person's work to fix the problem. From then on, it was like the snowball that gradually turned into an avalanche. The result was a large-scale project that was aimed at bringing as much missing content as possible back to the game.

After years of development, the cut content has been finally restored and the most of the bugs have been fixed, thanks to a project known as known as the "Restored Content Mod." The mod, revealed in The Deadly Stream forum, is in open beta, which means that players can now experience as complete a Jedi adventure as possible, provided they're willing to help the development team by reporting any issues they encounter. According to the project team leader, who goes by the handle "Stoney," the project's completion has been a long time coming. The result? An expanded, refined game that hints at what the original release should have been.

"The whole thing kind of started for me when I wanted to fix the broken 'Redemption' quest on Dantooine," Stoney told Ars. "While I was searching through the files... I found that it was tied into a lot more content that was cut." The quest in question required players to either condemn or redeem the reputation of the Jedi on the planet, but many gamers have reported that the quest would never resolve itself, no matter what path a player took. Stoney began working to bring back other missing pieces from the game and found himself working with another fan of KOTOR II. As a result, the duo began releasing mods that gradually made the game more complete.

Eventually, the team of two began to grow. More people got involved with the project, and a team of nine volunteers found themselves working together on a restoration effort that was much larger than anything they'd tried to accomplish on their own. "More or less, once we starting putting [our heads] together, we found a list of cut content and decided what we could add and started adding content."

Anyone who's played KOTOR II knows that it was a game that often felt incomplete and/or rushed. According to rumors—which were eventually confirmed by interviews with members of the game's development team—LucasArts gave Obsidian a deadline of roughly a year to produce a sequel to Bioware's seminal Knights of the Old Republic. Because of the game's size, a slew of content was cut in order to meet the tight deadline. According to an interview with Obsidian founder Chris Avellone, the smarter development move (in retrospect) would have been to make a shorter game that still included some of the more interesting content (like a "droid planet") that was only half-finished at the time of release.

While some might dismiss this as little more than a fan project, the Restored Content Mod deserves attention and praise for the sheer volume of content that the volunteer team has managed to return to the game. The full list is impressive: a total of 93 separate events and bugs have been reincluded or fixed. The scale of these events varies, ranging from expanding character dialogue and development to restoring missing boss battles to allowing players to determine the final fate of Malachor V.

At the moment, neither LucasArts nor Obsidian have issued any sort of response to the Deadly Stream team's efforts, though LucasArts has openly stated that it supports and welcomes fan mods of its Star Wars games. On the other hand, reactions to the restoration effort has been positive within the forum community. "So far... the response has been favorable," Stoney said, though he admitted, "there are still some bugs and rough areas. But with everyone's help we are fixing it so the final release will be better."

While the mod has yet to be finalized, the project is much closer to completion than other fan-led restoration efforts for the game. When asked about how it felt to be so close to releasing the finished version of the mod, Stoney voiced feelings of vindication and satisfaction. "It feels good," he said, "I'll feel better when the final release is actually done, then I'll be taking a break for awhile." Of course, the question on everyone's mind is "when will the final build be released?"

To that, Stoney can't provide a definite answer. "[That's] hard to say, it depends on how many bugs we find and how long it takes us to fix them."

For those who are interested in seeing examples of the mod in action, Stoney provided Ars a three-minute trailer:

If you're interested in trying this new content, head over to the Deadly Stream forums for instructions on how to download the Restored Content Mod. You'll need a PC copy of the game.

Great work Stoney! I'm glad somebody finally stepped up to the plate to take this project on since for the last two years it's been clear that Team Gizka wasn't going to get the job done!

I've just started playing this. I've also played the leaked 1.0b8 beta of Team Gizka's TSLRP, so it'll be interesting to compare my notes on the two. Interestingly enough, updates for Stoney's mod are being released to the public as they are made, so any bugs you run into could see a fix relatively soon as long as you take the time to report the issue.

Hooray! I've been putting off the end of the game for ages because everyone said it's unfinished & anticlimactic. Now I'll have a good excuse to pick it up again (and play through as the other alignment).

Despite my general dislike of all things star wars franchise, I love KOTOR I and like KOTOR II. I wish I have the PC version of KOTOR II for stuff like this. However, the trailer didn't impress me all that much. In any case, I am also believes that the Empire strikes back is the best Star Wars movie ever!

I've just started playing this. I've also played the leaked 1.0b8 beta of Team Gizka's TSLRP, so it'll be interesting to compare my notes on the two. Interestingly enough, updates for Stoney's mod are being released to the public as they are made, so any bugs you run into could see a fix relatively soon as long as you take the time to report the issue.

Bye Team Gizka, don't let the door hit your asses on the way out.

Funnily enough, I tried talking to Team Gizka; they never responded to emails or PMs in their forum. Oh, well.

I've just started playing this. I've also played the leaked 1.0b8 beta of Team Gizka's TSLRP, so it'll be interesting to compare my notes on the two. Interestingly enough, updates for Stoney's mod are being released to the public as they are made, so any bugs you run into could see a fix relatively soon as long as you take the time to report the issue.

That's how Team Gizka should have done things. It's the same way all those mods for Vampire: Bloodlines worked: many incremental improvements that gave fans a reason to try it out, and kept people engaged in the process over many years. Team Gizka made a very amateur mistake in trying to do finish it all at once and only release something close to perfection. That usually doesn't fly in the real world.

Originally posted by Bob Loblaw:That's how Team Gizka should have done things. It's the same way all those mods for Vampire: Bloodlines worked: many incremental improvements that gave fans a reason to try it out, and kept people engaged in the process over many years. Team Gizka made a very amateur mistake in trying to do finish it all at once and only release something close to perfection. That usually doesn't fly in the real world.

I don't understand how more "Mod" teams don't get this. It's so obvious. It's why Counter-Strike and the Vampire community weren't blackballed. They constantly improved the product with noticeable content/fixes each release. It keeps people interested and coming back.

Well where do you get your story-driven, D&D styled (mechanics), voice-acted sci-fi PC RPG fix? Mass Effect? Fallout 3? Bioware and Bethesda seem to have that market cornered, but I'd love to know about any good games that I've missed.

Originally posted by Bob Loblaw:That's how Team Gizka should have done things. It's the same way all those mods for Vampire: Bloodlines worked: many incremental improvements that gave fans a reason to try it out, and kept people engaged in the process over many years. Team Gizka made a very amateur mistake in trying to do finish it all at once and only release something close to perfection. That usually doesn't fly in the real world.

I don't understand how more "Mod" teams don't get this. It's so obvious. It's why Counter-Strike and the Vampire community weren't blackballed. They constantly improved the product with noticeable content/fixes each release. It keeps people interested and coming back.

I think I am on the off topic...but mod biggest enemy is "where is the profit?" There are a lot of mod communities, but very tiny portion ever see any profit out of it. Quality of mod is also suspect as well. If there is a company who can guarantee the quality all the mods, there is a business model here with all the download service available now days. Mod to me is more like fan fictions in the gaming world.

We live in the time where L4D2 gets 25 mil marketing budget. I am not entirely convinced that more money was spent on the game. Does any one know the budget of L4D2? I just can't believe how expensive game development has become....

Simple. They have been slow and uncommunicative in the process and treating it like some hallowed project. They have a "State of the project" in their forum right now that says there is only one active person left on the project and he hasn't written code in months. It's a "when he gets around to it" project now, and he doesn't seem willing to hand it off. It's asinine. I understand that he has other priorities in his life (new woman), that's cool. Just hand off the project then.

Speaking from my Morrowind modding days (Lilarcor mod), a lot of modders get over-ambitious. They have a great idea for a story, concept or neat add-on/gadget, but they have a learning-curve to overcome since they've never modded/coded before, or they think they have more time/interest in working on it than they do.

Folks in forums always say "hey, I have tons of great ideas, just email me", but ideas are a dime a dozen. It's action that's in short-supply. Seems a lot of modders want to spend tons of time talking about stuff on forums or making cool web-sites for their mod, but they find it hard devoting as much time to the actual dirty work of getting the mod done. And then when they try to get help, nobody wants to volunteer.

I think that's why Morrowind/Oblivion took off so well, because you can layer in lots of mini-mods from other folks to create a unique play experience. Plus, modding it was so ridiculously easy (albeit limited in what you could do).

You can also get turned-off from modding when the community gets snarky and self-entitled...

quote:

Bye Team Gizka, don't let the door hit your asses on the way out.

... case in point. Just because Team Gizka bit off more then they could chew and didn't deliver for you doesn't give you the right to chastise them. They're probably torn up that they can't produce what they wanted to, and you crap all over them as an end result. Modding can be a thankless job at times.

Not being money-motivated is both good and bad. I don't want mod folks doing it for money, otherwise they'll just start cranking out stuff to get paid like some publishing companies do. I want them to do it because they want to.

As for KOTOR 2, it did seem pretty spartan. I heard such great things about KOTOR, but never played it. Picked up KOTOR 2, and after playing it I felt "folks are hot-n-bothered about this? This is boring."

Originally posted by Tundro Walker:You can also get turned-off from modding when the community gets snarky and self-entitled...

Yeah, that'll happen when you overpromise and underdeliver. Gizka claimed 2 or 3 years ago that they'd have the definitive version, that it was just around the corner, and that it would be worth the wait. I've periodically checked in on their progress (or lack of) and had pretty much given up on it.

To see another team come along and actually give something to the community, albeit not in a perfect form, is a welcome relief and at this point team gizka aren't entitled to any thanks. All they gave their fans were unfulfilled promises.

I really mean to go back and play KOTOR, it's on my list of shame (never completed) but I knew if I played it, I'd want to play the sequel, and then I'd end up disappointed. Maybe now I'll go back and play them both.

The original KOTOR has better pacing and more creativity in most aspects of the design (IMHO of course). It has a great story and stands well on its own.

KOTOR 2 is far more dark & brooding. While they definitely increased the length of the dialogue trees you can have with your own party, it's more uneasy and less satisfying. The expanded weapon/armor upgrades are a nice addition, but KOTOR 2 combat was already far too weighted in your favor (caveat: I only played 2/3 to 3/4 of the game).

Meh. It does sound crappy, but he's also got a point: if you don't like their pace, go make your own mod or use someone else's. Stoney and his team were cool enough to step up with their own, so problem solved, right?

Almost reminds me of the eternal GPL vs. BSD debate. Sure, leaving the project open for new contributions or passing it on can be good as ideals... but does it always work out in reality? Should the "openness" truly be mandatory? Should free (gratis) work be berated if it's not open enough? I'm not quite sold there.

Am I the only person that liked KoTOR II? Sure, it was pretty buggy and I took full advantage of a glitch, I discovered without checking online, to lvl my character up to 50 far before I was supposed to. BUT, I had a great time with that game. I rank it on par with KoTOR and Morrowind. I played all those on Xbox, and that may be why I like it so much. Whatever. It looks like I'll have to get it for PC to try out the new story.

Originally posted by garapito:Am I the only person that liked KoTOR II? Sure, it was pretty buggy and I took full advantage of a glitch, I discovered without checking online, to lvl my character up to 50 far before I was supposed to. BUT, I had a great time with that game. I rank it on par with KoTOR and Morrowind. I played all those on Xbox, and that may be why I like it so much. Whatever. It looks like I'll have to get it for PC to try out the new story.

I don't think most people "hated" the game. It's more a case of seeing how good it could have been over what it was already. Seeing the shortcomings, bugs, and the obvious hurried nature of the storyline left many wishing for a more polished game experience.

If the game were truly disliked, there wouldn't be so many people happy that mod teams are restoring the lost content.

The combat is almost irrelevant to the real _conflict_ of the game. More often than not, the Exile fights his or her "boss battles" with words in dialogue rather than a lightsaber. And it works, really well, if you stop and pay attention. Well, that and remember Kreia is lying to you.

It's almost the opposite of KOTOR1, where the point was generating quips from Jolee and HK while getting in lightsaber fights as fast as possible by slamming Lightside Response/Darkside Response through the dialogue trees.

Originally posted by garapito:Am I the only person that liked KoTOR II?

I loved KOTOR2. I've written multiple times on this forum about its splendiferousness. But that love only goes as far as Malachor V, at which point the original plot forgets to end, all the hinting throughout the game at deeper plot hooks go unresolved, and all the storytelling that made the first 95% of the game amazing suddenly disappears.

It is the most painful cessation of narrative flow I can recall experiencing in a game.

Kreia never lied to you ... everything you debated with her was always subjective. There was no "right" or "wrong" way, only how you saw things and how she saw things. She was trying to persuade you to be like her the whole time.

Of course, having debates with her seemed a lot like Neo's conversation with the Construct Master in Matrix 3 (the Kentucky-Fried Chicken Colonel look-alike). Someone is so stuck on how they view things as being dogma that you'd have an easier time ramming your face into a wall than changing their mind.

Originally posted by garapito:Am I the only person that liked KoTOR II? Sure, it was pretty buggy and I took full advantage of a glitch, I discovered without checking online, to lvl my character up to 50 far before I was supposed to. BUT, I had a great time with that game. I rank it on par with KoTOR and Morrowind. I played all those on Xbox, and that may be why I like it so much. Whatever. It looks like I'll have to get it for PC to try out the new story.

No, you're not. I loved that game too, and not only because it almost contained everything I've ever wanted to see in a Star Wars game: a deep a convoluted plot, a non-manichaeist story, a lot of doubt and a wonderful point of view about why the hero of the previous game did what he did. Oh, and I liked the way it explained me why my NPC were sticking with me after all, the music, the characters, Kreia, the godmode fights and Kreia.

And yes, the fights were definitively not the main point of the game, but they managed to convey the feeling of power that must come with a powerful Force-wielding character. It reminded me the scenes in the Return of the Jedi when Luke single-handedly wipes out Jabba's barge and cronies. The same feeling comes when you cast a Force-Lightning spell and dispatch 10 Sith-soldiers fool enough to dare to attack you.Anyway, the real fight, as it has been already said, was in the way Kreia is trying to shape the events as she would like them to become, her very ambiguous relation with you, the other characters, the practical impossibility to define her as friend or foe, the amount of questioning she might be putting on a single action. There is also the general state of the Jedi, how far certain have fallen and how extreme their reaction end up to be with you past a certain point of the game.

What was the most frustrating is the poor state of the end game. You expect something absolutely marvellous given the previous events you've come through, knowing at last where the Hell Revan is gone, how you will shape up the things to come... And you only got an half-backed ending with all the subplots left hanging in the middle of nowhere, even though you saw an interesting scene or two just 10 minutes before the final fight...

I had more or less lost any hope to see the Team Gizka at last finish their TSLRP, it's great to know someone else managed to wrap things up. Is there any complete list of the restorations which have been made? For now, I haven't seen anything...

Kreia never lied to you ... everything you debated with her was always subjective. There was no "right" or "wrong" way, only how you saw things and how she saw things. She was trying to persuade you to be like her the whole time.

I always kinda pegged her as lawful evil, since she encourages you to exploit society for your own gain and because you gain reputation with her when she sees you make others suffer. But she doesn't seem to sow discord.

She most certainly did. She lies to you constantly, save the very end. The Exile is manipulated by her from minute one. A simple example is from the very beginning, where her claim of who is to blame for the Exile's unusual condition at the start of the game is flatly false. But even with the others, just remember a lie from a certain point of view is no less of a lie. And lying by omission and implication are, also, lies.

Umm Team Gizka deserves tons of crap. They lied consistently to keep the project theirs for some sort of glory of finishing it? ;( Fan projects run on a sort of honor system so efforts aren't wasted and they abused it.

Kreia never lied to you ... everything you debated with her was always subjective. There was no "right" or "wrong" way, only how you saw things and how she saw things. She was trying to persuade you to be like her the whole time.

I always kinda pegged her as lawful evil, since she encourages you to exploit society for your own gain and because you gain reputation with her when she sees you make others suffer. But she doesn't seem to sow discord.

KOTOR II did a much better job than I of showing that Dark Side can mean authoritarian good not selfish evil, taking ruthless action to shape the galaxy to what you consider its proper form. In KOTOR I, Dark Side often seemed mindless chaotic evil.

Originally posted by Bob Loblaw:That's how Team Gizka should have done things. It's the same way all those mods for Vampire: Bloodlines worked: many incremental improvements that gave fans a reason to try it out, and kept people engaged in the process over many years. Team Gizka made a very amateur mistake in trying to do finish it all at once and only release something close to perfection. That usually doesn't fly in the real world.

I don't understand how more "Mod" teams don't get this. It's so obvious. It's why Counter-Strike and the Vampire community weren't blackballed. They constantly improved the product with noticeable content/fixes each release. It keeps people interested and coming back.

I think I am on the off topic...but mod biggest enemy is "where is the profit?" There are a lot of mod communities, but very tiny portion ever see any profit out of it. Quality of mod is also suspect as well. If there is a company who can guarantee the quality all the mods, there is a business model here with all the download service available now days. Mod to me is more like fan fictions in the gaming world.

We live in the time where L4D2 gets 25 mil marketing budget. I am not entirely convinced that more money was spent on the game. Does any one know the budget of L4D2? I just can't believe how expensive game development has become....

also consider that the mod community these days often need to get hold of the same tools that the original dev team used.

this unlike when quake1 came out, where it used its own c variant (quakec) and the compiler came for free on magazine demo disc. later on a shareware modeling tool came to be.

with quake2 and later one needed visual-c++ or similar, and modeling tools moved to 3dstudio or similar...

thats a very big jump in startup costs...

also, this restoration project is basically unlocking stuff thats already in there, not adding models and maps (unless i have missed something).

The fan base took a fantastic, yet maddeningly buggy and incomplete game and finished it. They squashed all sorts of bugs and restored a significant amount of cut content. It's still a flawed gem, but now it's a flawed gem that doesn't crash all the time or corrupt your saved games.

If you like horror and intrigue, grab a copy. The voice work is fantastic (you'll recognize the actors from DC animated shows and Futurama) and it's almost as replayable as Deus Ex.

I really liked KOTOR II. I really loved seeing how Kreia makes you doubt weather you did a good or a bad thing in the big picture by your decisions or how people zealously doing good end up falling to evil in the end. What I hated was that there was no real ending like in KOTOR I. The most important part of the game and it's virtually missing.

Seeing how much content was cut though i'm sad Lucas Arts didn't give Obsidian a bit more time to finish the project. The game had the potential to be infinitely better than it was in the end.

Kudos to everyone trying to restore the game to what it's supposed to be. I finished both KOTOR I & II multiple times and i might do it again with this restoration patch. I played it with some restord content before but nothing major like this.